Related Articles

Housel is British because he was born in Bermuda, a British territory, where his American parents were working and where he spent his first three years.

Lawyers for Housel claimed his human rights were abused, his right to competent legal representation ignored and an illness which rendered him temporarily insane not discussed in the court which convicted him.

Earlier this month his mother, Lula Pellerin, travelled to Britain to plead with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Prime Minister Tony Blair to call for him to be saved from execution.

The Foreign Office has written to the governor of Georgia, Roy Barnes, and to its Pardons and Parole Board, calling for the death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

Housel's lawyers have repeated their calls for Mr Straw and Mr Blair to make personal representations to Mr Barnes and to President Bush.

Robert McGlasson, his American lawyer, said: "We are very grateful to the Foreign Secretary for the written representations made on Tracy's behalf and for taking the time to personally listen to the details of his case.

"We are realistic, however, that nothing short of a personal phone call will prevent Tracy from being executed. I urge Jack Straw and Tony Blair to take a few minutes to pick up the phone and save a life."

Housel's lawyers had claimed he was insane when he went on a two-week rampage across America because of a combination of brain damage suffered in childhood due to a combination of his father beating him, another child attacking him with a baseball bat and a car crash.

He also suffered from a rare and extreme form of hypoglycaemia, which caused him to undergo violent mood swings and blackouts when his blood sugar was low.

They also claimed he was effectively tortured by police who held him in solitary confinement, interrogated him at night and "punished" him by making him stand in water while they prodded him with an electric stun gun.

The lawyers also claim he was denied his right to proper legal representation by being given a court-appointed lawyer who had never handled a murder case and advised him to plead guilty to capital murder, guaranteeing he would have a minimum sentence of life without parole.